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Local Businesswoman Named State Small Business Person of the Year

A local entrepreneur and SCORE Greater Cincinnati client has been named the 2020 SBA Kentucky Small Business Person of the Year.

Mavis Linnemann-Clark started a catering business, The Delish Dish Catering & Events, in 2012, and has also launched a line of artisan jams and jellies called Made by Mavis Artisan Jams. In October, she will join 53 business owners from across the country for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Week celebration. The SBA National Small Business Person of the Year will be named during the ceremonies.

“We are thrilled for Mavis to receive this recognition,” said SCORE Mentor Carlin Stamm, who has provided her more than 200 hours of free business counseling. “She has a great combination of talent, training and passion for her business, which have helped has helped her turn major obstacles into new business opportunities.”

In 2015, Linnemann-Clark learned the incubator kitchen where she operated her business was moving to a new location. With assistance from the Small Business Development Center and SCORE, she successfully negotiated a long-term lease with the new owners of the building and took over management of the kitchen as a separate business. Kickstart Kitchen rents space to 10 small food businesses.

Linnemann-Clark was named the SCORE Greater Cincinnati Client of the Year in 2016, and she was awarded both the SBA’s Kentucky Woman-Owned Business of the Year and the SBDC’s Pacesetter Award in 2018. She is a graduate of the Bad Girl Ventures (now called Aviatra) accelerator program with 20 years of food service industry experience. A native to Northern Kentucky, she attended Kendall College in Chicago, where she was classically trained in French technique and participated in a Mexican Master Class. She graduated with a certificate in Catering and Personal Chef.